Nintendo has announced that it’s bringing Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn’s Elincia to Fire Emblem: Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan on May 10th. Elincia, hails from Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn and Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. Fire Emblem: Awakening is heading to Europe later this year.
Animal Crossing for the Nintendo 3DS won’t be reliant on downloadable content says Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. Despite the game having the potential of multiple pieces of downloadable content, Iwata says that this won’t be the case. Animal Crossing 3D will obviously have some DLC but the majority of the content will be on the cartridge when you purchase the game later this year.
“We will continue to make efforts to avoid such misunderstandings as, “the next ‘Animal Crossing’ might be a game which relies upon add-on content sales.”
A member of the development team behind Ghost Recon for Wii U has stated that fans can expect to see plenty of downloadable content when the game launches alongside Wii U sometime after June this year. The game features a store with items that you can buy with in-game currency, or alternatively you can buy “Ghost Coins” with real-world money. The developer also mentioned that you can instantly switch your weapons and gear between respawns using the Wii U controller.
Batman Arkham City, which is due to be released this year for Wii U, will be receiving some form of downloadable content in the not too distant future. Arkham City director Sefton Hill spoke with Geoff Keighley about the subject and was told “There’s still some more announcements coming. There are more exciting things to come.” Who knows, maybe the DLC will be released with the main game when it arrives sometime later this year on Wii U.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told investors that there’s a possibility that Nintendo will add additional stages to games such as Mario as downloadable content. Iwata stated that it would not only give Nintendo additional profits, but it will enable the game to remain fresh in the minds of gamers, and lengthen the life of the product.
“As I referred to before, for example, this is the idea of supplying new stages to Super Mario users who want to play the game more but have completed the game and lost interest in the existing stages. This will not only give us new profits but will lengthen the life of a product, in that it will never be out of fashion and can keep attracting public attention as long as many people play it.”
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has clarified that Nintendo has no intention of publishing unfinished games just to make some extra money from paid downloadable content. We already know that the Nintendo Network will support paid DLC.
“Nintendo, as a software maker, does not plan to [run a business] where our consumers cannot know in advance which [product] will appear as the result of their payment,” Iwata said. “As a software maker, Nintendo believes that its packaged software should be sold to our consumers in a form so that the consumers will know in advance that they can enjoy playing the software they purchased just as it is.”
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has told AOL’s Games Blog that the Kyoto based company isn’t interested in dishing out downloadable content for first party content as they want consumers to feel like they’ve purchased a full game. Nintendo may add additional downloadable content after launch, but only when it makes sense to for the company to do so and not necessarily for a charge.
“We’re interested in it to the extent that it makes sense to the consumer.”
“I’ve had this conversation with a number of our key developers, and their mentality is, ‘Reggie, when we sell a game, we want the consumer to feel that they’ve had a complete experience.’
“Now, in addition, if we want to make other things available, great, and we’ll look at that. But we’re unwilling to sell a piece of a game upfront and, if you will, force a consumer to buy more later.
“That’s what they don’t want to do, and I completely agree. I think the consumer wants to get, for their money, a complete experience, and then we have opportunities to provide more on top of that.”
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has confirmed that first party Nintendo 3DS content will be getting downloadable content for titles that the company is publishing next year. Hopefully this means we will see additional content for games such as Animal Crossing and Kid Icarus Uprising.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has stated that paid downloadable content will come to both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Nintendo most likely won’t offer paid downloadable content but no doubt third-party developers for both systems will. What’s your opinion on DLC?
One investor asked Iwata about his thoughts on paid download content. Nintendo is currently preparing a paid item transaction system for both 3DS and Wii U, Iwata revealed. For 3DS, this will be available to developers by the end of the year.
Nintendo may not end up using this system for itself, though. Later in his response, Iwata said that while pursuing paid download content opportunities would likely increase short term profits, it would not allow them to build along term relationship with customers. Therefor, Nintendo feels that it should not have this type of paid charge system for its own content.
Iwata denied that he is critical in general of the concept of paid downloads. He did, however, question the concept of free-to-play games, where you start playing the game for free and are charged for item purchases. He feels that this type of system would damage the premium value Nintendo’s content.
On the topic of digital downloads in general, Iwata noted that the 3DS internet connection rate is far beyond that of the DS. However, it’s still not at the one hundred percent satisfaction level, and furthermore, only a fraction of those people actually download paid content. He hopes that over the next three years, Nintendo will make the Nintendo e-Shop, the online shop that’s accessible from the 3DS, into a larger presence. He wants this to amount to a more drastic change than something like increasing ten percent from the current five present. Additionally, Iwata said he has a great desire to create a future where players will pay for digital content just like normal with no reservations. This will be a major point for Nintendo over the next three years, said Iwata.
Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has revealed to online gaming publication GameInformer that his team are tinkering with the idea of downloadable online content and possibly a multiplayer mode for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
- “Having people play together is a theme that’s always stuck in my mind, but it’s about trying to create what would work best for Legend of Zelda.”
- “”Let’s say a player does something in their game that affects an area, and then that is communicated back to another system, and that would introduce new elements to your game. I find that sort of communication really interesting.”
- “We have thought about DLC, and we are thinking about it.”
- Eiji Aonuma
